Category Archives: Texas Dream Act

RE: Business Community Support of In-State Tuition and TEXAS Grants for Texas Residents

Dear Members of the Texas Legislature,

On behalf of the undersigned businesses, we respectfully request your support for the continuation of in-state tuition and state financial aid for all eligible youth who attend high school in Texas. We are deeply concerned over state legislation introduced that would end the “Texas DREAM Act” and block access to TEXAS Grants for DREAMer students who meet certain requirements. We urge you to resist those efforts to turn our backs on what has been visionary and bipartisan state law since 2001. Such proposals would hurt Texas businesses and impede prosperity for the people of our state.

As business leaders, we are well aware that a highly-educated workforce is an imperative for our state if it will continue to attract businesses. The rich binational commerce from which Texas benefits is key to preparing our workforce and remaining competitive in a global marketplace. Supporting long-standing law that allows DREAMers to qualify for in-state tuition and TEXAS Grants will provide students the opportunity to attain academic success, serve in our military, and make contributions that will help stimulate our state’s economy through an increase in wages, taxes and consumption of goods and services.

Please consider the needs of our economy, employers, and future workforce and the economic ramifications a repeal of in-state tuition and TEXAS Grants for Texas DREAMers would have on our state.

Joining a growing chorus of complaints about President Barack Obama’s new policy giving some illegal immigrants a two-year reprieve from deportation, Gov. Rick Perry has advised state agencies that the federal move will not change Texas’ policies against providing services for those who remain in the country.

In a letter distributed to state agencies on Monday, Perry calls the president’s plan “a slap in the face to the rule of law.”

“To avoid any confusion on the impact of the Obama administration’s actions, I am writing to ensure that all Texas agencies understand that (Homeland Security) Secretary (Janet) Napolitano’s guidelines confer absolutely no legal status whatsoever to any alien who qualifies for the federal ‘deferred action’ designation,” Perry said. Read more »

"WASHINGTON – A leading immigrant advocacy group warned Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursday that his endorsement by Rep. Lamar Smith, author of several immigration bills, could later haunt his White House aspirations in a general election.

Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, endorsed Romney over his home state Gov. Rick Perry, earlier this week.

'The Obama campaign must be watching with glee,' said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a group that advocates comprehensive immigration reform and citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

'For a candidate whose best "vote for me" argument to Republicans is that he is electable in a potential general election match-up, Romney’s recent endorsements seem instead calculated to alienate Latinos and shrink the number of potential battleground states in the process,' Sharry said.

Romney has attacked Perry in televised debates over the Texas governor’s positions on immigration measures.

Perry signed a bill that allows children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition, and he has opposed a mandatory statewide E-Verify program that would require businesses to check a new employee’s immigration status against government data bases after the person is hired." Read more …

"Illegal immigrants who do well in high school are not only eligible for lower-cost, in-state tuition rates at Texas universities and colleges. Thanks to legislation signed by Gov. Rick Perryin 2001, many are also receiving publicly funded grants to pay for their education.

The in-state tuition policy, which was broadened in 2005 and again signed by Perry, has become a major flashpoint in the 2012 presidential race. Perry has taken repeated fire from his conservative base — and from his chief rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — for supporting the lower residency tuition rates for students in the country illegally. What isn't as well known is that the very same law also allows some of these students to access the state's limited amount of financial aid." Read more …

"AUSTIN — If you believe the pundits, Gov. Rick Perry didn’t win this week’s Republican presidential debate but did much better than in previous contests. Yet, given his low standing in the polls, whether Perry can rebound and win his party’s nomination is, well, debatable.

But you can count on this: Dozens of controversial anti-illegal immigration bills should be filed when the Texas Legislature is back in session in 2013. Buoyed by the attention the issue has received in almost every presidential debate — and Perry fired the first shot Tuesday night — if re-elected next year, some of the most conservative Republican lawmakers intend to re-introduce bills killed in recent sessions." Read more …